


Let Time Stand Still

by Arista_Holmes



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Desire Demon - Freeform, F/M, Roses, The Fade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 18:48:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29937813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arista_Holmes/pseuds/Arista_Holmes
Summary: The Dragon Age Server, Beyond The Veil, held an Angst Challenge on March 8th 2020. Could we write a story about apples to make one of our users cry?This is the 1 year Anniversary edition. Same rules, only this time the story had to include Roses instead of Apples.Dedicated to Noire-Pandora on tumblr.
Relationships: Elluin Lavellan/Solas, Female Lavellan/Solas, Fen'Harel | Solas/Female Lavellan
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Let Time Stand Still

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Noire12](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noire12/gifts).



He stood before her, a strange mishmash of her memories. Simple footwraps, combined with the wolf-fur wrap across his torso, hands clasped behind his back in casual dismissal, and yet with his head bowed with regret.

Even if Elluin hadn't been able to see through the illusion to the desire demon beneath, the strange mixture of what she expected and what she wanted to see would have tipped her off that something wasn't right.

She lifted her hand to dismiss the demon. To force it away and out of her dreamscape when she suddenly felt the familiar eyes of her night time shadow and hesitated. She didn't need to turn and look to know that the wolf was pacing the edges of her dream, watching, guarding, and she could almost sense the growl directed at the demon before her.

It shivered and she made a split-second decision that she knew was reckless, and dangerous, but desperation drew her hand forward to settle against the illusionary wolf pelt. Her fingers sank into the coarse fur, and gripped tight, stopping the desire demon from fleeing before Solas' threat.

“Look me in the eyes and tell me you don't love me,” she whispered, and the desire demon lifted its gaze to meet her eyes. It was confused, she could see that because the words she spoke were not her desire, but Elluin wasn't talking to the demon before her, but at the shadow to her back.

“Tell me that you don't feel as I do, and I'll let you go. I promise. I'll walk away from the field of battle and you'll never have to face me again.”

The growling stopped, the demon shimmered before her in confusion, and Elluin felt her chest tremble from the pounding of her heart as she forced herself to keep speaking past the lump in her throat.

“Break my heart. One more time, Solas, I dare you...”

The demon read her desire at long last. A young demon, newly corrupted, it finally read the falsehood beneath her words and bent to kiss her but a snarl shook the fade before the illusions lips could crash against her own.

The sound was deafening, and the walls of her dream trembled forcing her to flinch back from the demon seconds before it dissipated like smoke on a breeze.

The tears Elluin had been holding back gathered on her lashes and fell at the feel of firm hands grasping at her arms, spinning her to face a Solas who was real, and solid, and furious.

“What were you thinking?!” he growled, storm-filled eyes flickering across her face. It was familiar enough to make her heart ache, the urgency to check her over for injuries after a battle and Elluin wanted nothing more than to sink into his arm, and let him take care of her but she resisted.

“I-”

“And don't lie to me,” Solas added, shaking her lightly with the hold he still had on her arms, “you are too accomplished a mage to not have seen that spirit for what it was!”

“Don't lie to you?” Elluin repeated, “I should be saying that to you! All you know is lying!” she snapped, regretting it instantly when Solas flinched and stepped away, releasing her as quickly as he'd arrived at her side.

“No, wait,” she pleaded, advancing on him and grasping at his arm, her touch stilling his retreat, “I knew what it was... I just...”

She didn't know how to explain to Solas that she missed him so completely that even a weak facsimile in the form of a desire demon was better than not seeing him at all, and she felt another tear slide down her cheek, Solas' gaze tracking it sadly.

Her breath caught when he lifted the arm she didn't have locked in a death grip and gently wiped the tear from her cheek. His thumb brushed smoothly across her skin and Elluin released a shaky sigh, eyes fluttering slightly but she dared not close them.

She didn't dare give the somniari before her the chance to vanish between one blink and the next.

“I just... miss you.” The words were weak, but they were the best she had, and she shook her head, “I hate waking up every morning to find you gone. I hate finding the rotunda empty. I hate not being able to speak with you about my day, and I miss debating magical theory and I literally dream about your stories of the fade...”

Elluin stared at him, her words fading off and she shrugged weakly, “but you don't come to me. You won't speak, you just stalk the edges of my mind... so if a desire demon is the closest I can get-”

“It's just a nightmare, it's not real,” Solas whispered, cutting her off with pain in his voice. “At best it only prolongs your pain, and at worst you could lose yourself to them entirely...”

“What if it's not?” Elluin asked, chin raising in challenge, “You said yourself; The fade is another realm, what if I could just stay here. What if I could make the dream a reality?”

The dreamscape shimmered beneath her will, reforming around them into a whirling mass of colours and seconds later they stood in a field of roses.

Reds, pinks, purples, blues, all shimmering in a light coating of dew, the air crisp and clear, fresh with the bright dawn of a summer sunrise, painting the sky the same colours as the flowers around them in a portrait more stunning than anything Elluin could create with Solas' paints.

His eyes never left hers though, despite the beauty around them, he stayed transfixed within her pleading green eyes.

“You would stay asleep forever, to stay by my side,” Solas breathed, the words barely escaping his lips. More felt than heard, and although it wasn't a question, Elluin answered with a firm nod.

Solas' lips pressed together, and the heartbroken expression wasn't the response she had expected, her fingers tightening around his arm once more.

“Don't go,” she begged. She recognised the pain in his face from Crestwood, and her heart ached at the rising memories that she quickly wrestled under control before they were able to infect the landscape she'd crafted for them.

“Ah, Vhenan,” Solas sighed, letting the fingers of his free hand sink into her hair and stroke through the delicate tresses softly, “You will never know how much I wish for that...”

Elluin shivered, and for a moment she thought it was in response to his touch, but the sky began to darken, and the roses began to wilt and wither. Petals dropping to the ground like raindrops in a storm, coating the ground with a rainbow of colours and she turned to stare at the beauty she'd created in horror as it died before her eyes.

“But time stops for no one. Not even me, and certainly not for us.”

Elluin realised her mistake too late. She'd taken her eyes away from the somniari that held her heart, and by the time she spun back to Solas his arm beneath her fingers was nothing more than cold air, biting frost, and the chill of being alone in the Fade once more.

She heard a howl of agony as she woke, and while it might have come from her heart, something made her sure it was the wolf that stalked her dreams crying out for what he believed could never be.


End file.
